DAVID BARRON, Copyright 2010 Houston Chronicle |
December 8, 2010

Baylor coach Art Briles, left, and Illinois coach Ron Zook are happy to have extra practice time to plan for the 2011 season.

Even though the 170-mile stretch of Highway 6 between Waco and Houston isn’t likely to make anybody’s list of great scenic drives of North America, it’s a joyride of epic proportions for coach Art Briles and the Baylor Bears.

Briles, the former University of Houston coach, returned to town Wednesday to promote the Bears’ appearance in the Dec. 29 Texas Bowl at Reliant Stadium against Illinois. It’s the first bowl for Baylor since 1994 and a “dang good start,” Briles said, in his three-year quest to resuscitate the figurative corpse that has been Baylor football.

“Go without breathing for 16 years, and see how long you’re going to be alive,” Briles said. “People had written us off as being dead in the football world, and here we are, standing in a bowl game.

“Our fans have suffered for a long time. I’ve been there for three years, and I feel the suffering, but you can imagine being there through 16. It’s really been heartwarming to see it happen. It’s a new chapter for us as a football team.”

All about access

Baylor’s bowl fever is heartwarming, too, for the Texans’ Lone Star Sports and Entertainment arm, which operates the Texas Bowl in association with ESPN. Heather Houston, the game’s executive director, said ticket sales thus far total between 55,000 and 60,000 — much of that to the green and gold persuasion.

It’s a potentially productive trip, too, for Illinois coach Ron Zook. Texas is relatively untapped recruiting territory for the Big Ten, which signed just 10 Texas high school players in 2010, and might as well be the other side of the moon for Illinois, which has signed just one Texan in the 18 years that Dave Campbell’s Texas Football has tracked state-by-state recruiting totals.

“One of the things this bowl is doing is allowing access to high school coaches, and that’s great access for us,” Zook said. “What happens in recruiting is that you try to get a guy or two to come out. We’ve been close on a few, and if they can get there and do well and be happy, that is how you get your niche.”

After both teams struggled down the stretch of the 2010 season — Baylor (7-5) was outscored 150-82 by Oklahoma State, Texas A&M and Oklahoma after beating Texas, 30-22, and the Illini (6-6) dropped three of their last four — both coaches are happy to have extra practice time to plan for the 2011 season.

“We’ve had three practices so far, and we’ve kept our young guys out late and worked with them,” Briles said. “It’s a great chance to be around those guys a little longer, have a chance to coach them on a more personal level and get to know them a little bit better. You can’t like or dislike somebody until you’ve been around them for awhile.”

Mirror images

Zook, however, has watched sufficient film on Baylor quarterback Robert Griffin III (3,195 yards and 21 touchdowns passing, 591 yards and eight TDs rushing) to dislike what he sees.

“We’ve played a couple of pretty good quarterbacks (Michigan’s Denard Robinson and Ohio State’s Terrelle Pryor),” Zook said. “I think he’s a little bit of a cross between the two. But he’s a great player. There is no question as he goes, I think, they go.”

Illinois will counter with a dual-threat quarterback in Nathan Scheelhaase, who has thrown for 1,583 yards and 17 touchdowns and rushed for 815 yards and four scores, and running back Mikel Leshoure, who ran for 1,513 yards and 14 TDs. The Illini have rushed for 242.3 yards per game and rolled up 519 yards on 70 carries, including 330 on 33 carries for Leshoure, in a 48-27 win over Northwestern.

“I think our football teams are very, very similar,” Zook said. “Whether the selection committee looked at that or not, it’s amazing just how similar we are.”

Appropriately, both are aching to be considered the underdog.

“I kind of like the underdog role,” Briles said. “(Zook) is coming with the underdog role, so we may have to flip a coin and see who gets to play that.”